What A Powerful Woman, Goddamn...

Having taken a couple classes about the history of rock and roll, I have been aware the musical impact of Nina Simone on many different fronts, but more on the technical side such as the aspects of her raspy voice yet her unique style in which she creates her songs. Today I was extremely pleased that I got to know more about the political side to her music, and even a documentary about her that I never knew existed. 

I always admire when an artist is able to carry out an inspiring message, raw emotion, and even the voice of their people through the medium of music. With her already impressive reputation in the music industry, I wasn't at all surprised Nina had the capability to do all three. However I was surprised she actually did it, along with everybody else back in her day. It was obvious anyone who stood up to the extreme violence and injustice during such sensitive events such as the bombing and MLK's assassination were going to face consequences, it only depended on who in particular rose to the action. Like Beyoncé at the Super bowl, Nina knew she had the platform to do it, so she did with no care whatsoever to the backlash she could have and did receive. She ran out of patience to hold back such as many did, and forced her word to be heard by the people corrupting not her life but many others. So, what other way to do this then to create a song releasing all the thoughts, all the remorse, anger, frustration, etc. that had been bottled up this whole time. What other way then to have her voice punch through the barrier of ignorance with tuneful shouts, frustrated rambling, and exhausted breathes all pounding upon the people in power in return. 

To add on, later in life she had a safer platform, as even though civil rights are still desperately needed today, free speech is definitely more welcomed then back in the 60's. Anyways, she used her platform yet again to not only sing this incredible song with even more raw emotion, but she expressed theme poetic like mini rants inserted at random point in the song as well. It just shows so clearly how powerful these events were to carry such truly sorrowful, frustrated tunes so accurately into the remastered version of the song farther ahead into future.